Review: Neverland: The Impossible Island

While D&D is very often somewhat jokingly described as being able to play as Gandalf and Conan and go on adventures together, there's a large grain of truth to it. The stories, the movies, the fairy tales that we grew up watching and reading directly impact what we want and expect to see and do when we sit down to play. So often though the stories that are told in children's books are ignored in favor of of more "adult" tales.

Which is silly. There are amazing stories that can be told from children's literature. Sometimes what you need is a little bit of fairy dust, and a guide to help you find the way.

Neverland: The Impossible Island is one such guide.



It would be easy to do a copy/paste of Peter Pan, slap some stats on a few key things, and call it a day. The author does so much more than that. Taking the original source material, and looking at it through not only a lens of what would be fun to play, but also tweaking and updating the source material to better fit modern sensibilities.

Yes, that means there aren't racist native american caricatures to be found here.

We can all admit this was trash, okay?

Instead, you get several interesting factions of island inhabitants, descriptions of various locations, and of course stats for important characters, including Pan, Hook, Smee, and the Croc. Interestingly no stats for Wendy or Lilly... But they do get a write up.

One of the things I most enjoy about Neverland are the figments. The creatures of the island aren't natural, and are created from the bits and pieces of the inhabitant's imaginations. There's a fun and infinitely expandable chart for creating simple figments, but as they're literally creatures of the imagination, there's no limit to what you can come up with.

If you've ever been interested in adding a bit of fairy dust to your game, it's worth the suggested price of admission (though it's PWYW) to pick up Neverland: The Impossible Island.